Maryam Shanechi

Maryam M. Shanechi is an assistant professor and the Viterbi early career chair in electrical engineering at USC. Her research is positioned at the interface of control theory, statistical inference, and neuroscience, with the goal of developing brain-machine interfaces (BMI), or direct communication pathways between the brain and external objects. Shanechi develops BMIs to improve motor function, control the effects of anesthesia, and facilitate deep brain stimulation to treat neuropsychiatric disorders.

Shanechi is the principal investigator of a five-year, $11.2-million joint US-UK multidisciplinary university research initiative (MURI) to lead the development of BMIs that will enhance human decision making under pressure. Her work combines methodology development with real-time implementation and testing. She uses HPC resources to test her algorithmic designs and to analyze high-dimensional neural datasets.

Shanechi is the recipient of various awards, including the NSF CAREER Award, and has been listed on the MIT Technology Review’s top 35 educators under the age of 35 (TR35) and Popular Science’s Brilliant 10.